New Season, New Site, New Dorm Fridge... err Cheese Cave

Welcome to the new site! Yep, it's still us, just a revamped site. Now that the wedding is over I finally had a little time to give some love to the site. We wanted it to feel a little lighter and cleaner so I spent last week drawing chickens and laying out a new design - we hope you enjoy it!

And now for another unveiling, kicking the fall season off with a bang: Our new cheese cave! yes - we said "cheese cave"OK - it may be a crappy dorm fridge from the 80’s, but look a little closer and you’ll see the next step in hatching Little Seed’s cheese dreams! I’ve been making fresh cheese at home (thanks for the inspiration Melody!) once or twice a week for the past month. We’ve gobbled up ricotta, mozzarella, buttermilk cheese, primosale, and now today skyr. We’re ready, and excited, to move on to aged cheese. It’s one step closer to making something that might actually resemble a product we’ll make and sell on the farm.

I had seen some mini-fridge cave rigs on cheeseforum.org and started trying to carve a little spot out in the corner of our bedroom where something similar could live. With no garage, basement, or extra space in our apartment, the cave will have to live with us - a happy reminder of the future we’re working towards every morning when we wake up. I had been looking on craigslist for something cheap and within walking distance as we don’t have a car here in the city. A week ago there was a promising listing - a moving sale only a few blocks away! Scrapple and I headed over on Saturday morning with my little brother (they’ve made massive improvements on the roads and he was able to finally get out of his town in VT to come and visit us!). Lo and behold - there it was, looking a little worn and dusty, just begging for a little love. Not only did we find the cave, there was also a beautiful glass dome for only $3! So for $20 we got a cheese cave and a beautiful little dome.

I spent a few days testing the temperature fluctuations and getting the fridge ready. Normally you need a thermostat overrider to get the temp high enough, but this baby is so busted I was able to just move the internal thermostat into the freezer compartment to trick it into thinking it's colder and now we have an environment that stays between 53 and 58 degrees - perfect aging conditions! I’ve been checking it all this week and it seems pretty stable. The next steps are to get a hygrometer to monitor humidity and then make some cheese to age. My mold and cultures should be coming early this week and soon our cave will have it’s first inhabitant!